Destiny's Children
10 Years After The End Of Apartheid
During apartheid's waning years, police regularly invaded the University of the Witwatersrand, breaking up demonstrations with tear gas. Students took to holding secret political meetings between classes. They became the "lost generation," giving up their schooling, their freedom, and, in some cases, their lives for the cause of black liberation. Methula's brother, Gordon Nkgathi, who is 11 years her senior, was once also a promising young student. But his education came in fits and starts in between trials, detentions, and demonstrations. "My love for my country and its people," he says, "took precedence over my own needs." He doesn't begrudge his younger sister's materialism or the unprecedented opportunities she enjoys. These are the things for which he and others fought. But he is saddened, he says, by the younger generation's turning away from politics: "I think this materialism slows down our progress as a nation."
Though her brother and mother risked their lives to win the right to vote, Methula, like many young people, doesn't plan to cast her ballot in this week's contests for the national Parliament--only the third time South Africa has held democratic, nonracial elections. Just half of 18- to 25-year-olds are registered to vote, a significantly lower rate than that of any other age group. Two thirds of South African youth, according to a recent survey, find politics unimportant. Now, the preoccupation is with making money: More than 90 percent of youth think money makes people happy, the same survey shows. In the new South Africa, people are judged not by the color of their skin, many of these young people say, but by how much is in their wallets. Blacks used to need a special pass to even walk through the exclusive white suburbs; now they seek the cash they need to buy a house there.
While many lament the growth of consumerism and conspicuous consumption, it is in some ways a measure of the success of South Africa's transition. Black graduates are now receiving more than half of all university diplomas each year. In 1991, they received fewer than one quarter of the diplomas. Their income is soaring: The richest 10 percent of South Africa's population, less than 2 percent black a decade ago, is now 25 percent black. The black middle class, once almost nonexistent, is now bigger than the white middle class.
To join the exclusive club of BMW drivers, South Africa's young blacks negotiated deep cultural divides and economic fault lines that continue to make upward mobility a herculean feat. Luceth Nzima, 22, a first-year student at the University of the Witwatersrand, plans to become a chartered accountant. One of apartheid's legacies is that only 337 of South Africa's 20,000 accountants are black. Sitting on campus, wearing tight jeans and lime-green nail polish, she explains that while she may aspire to reach the top of the corporate ladder, back in her rural village in Limpopo Province, she is forbidden to wear pants, must kneel on the ground when she meets elders, and must speak only when spoken to, like the other young women. Maxwell Nqeno, a classmate of Nzima's, returns each night after class to his parents' home in an abandoned building in a squatter camp. He studies by candlelight, fetches water from a nearby communal tap to wash each morning, and uses public toilets.
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